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The Old Rule
The Old Rule lies to the east of The Empire of the Invincible Overlord. It's fucked. History of the Old Rule The Old Rule was first settled thirty years ago, when King Cevye and his lords fled a popular uprising led by the Invincible Overlord . Seeking to overthrow ancient and corrupt power structures, the Overlord drove the nobility beyond the Foolscap Mountains. Afterwards, content that the mountains formed a natural barrier between them, both sides decided to quit fighting and the King set about transplanting the old feudal system to the unsettled lands abutting his former kingdom. The noble houses spent the next ten years erecting exact replicas of the castles they lost to the Overlord, fortifying the new realm and assisting their vassals with the recreation of their villages. However the Old Rule's smooth beginning is often attributed to the magical blessings bestowed upon it by the King's powerful new ally, the wizard Pantang, and given the events of the year immediately following the decade of reconstruction is generally viewed as a false dawn. The Curse Once the period of reconstruction was complete, King Cevye began the process of consolidating his power base via two politically inspired arranged marriages. The first marriage, an attempt to secure the archmage's goodwill, was to be between King Cevye's daughter, Princess Trompander, and Pantang. The second would see King Sevy himself wedded to Lady Carol of House Simbeline - a reward for the house's loyalty and valour during the Great Retreat . What happened next is confused and poorly documented, but most scholars agree that Pantang, who was known for his vanity, summoned a demon that he found himself unable to banish or control. The demon, in order to punish the human who sought to dominate him, after breaking free of Pantang's enchantments kidnapped Princess Trompander and made away with her to lands unknown. Unable to accept that he was at fault and suspecting foul play on behalf of the king, Pantang cursed the Old Rule, plunging all the houses into darkness. 'Present Day' Currently the Old Rule is in a state of disrepair. The King, probably as an outcome of Pantang's curse, has retreated behind the walls of his castle, now dubbed King's Ruin, and given up any attempt at governership, leaving the houses masterless. Mired in curse-begotten problems of their own and without strong leadership, the houses have withdrawn all contact from one another - except in the case of Verinrue and Simbeline, where old emnities have arisen leading to war . Law As one would expect in a land without government, much of the Old Rule is chaotic and dangerous, the King's Law replaced by the capricious whims of the, it seems, increasingly demented lords and ladies presiding over the houses. Bandits run rampant throughout the countryside and wayfarers should be warned that the roads, other than those passing between Verinrue and Simbeline, are not safe. The only laws that are strictly held to are the Law of Allegiance, where all who enter the realm are forced by the powerful magic guarding it to swear fealty to its monarch, and the sub-set of laws relating to the use of proper honorifics whenever reference is made to same: e.g. "Chub! Chub! The King! The King!" Religion In the decade before the curse, the faiths of the Old Rule were accorded greater respect and obeisance, along with more substantial patronage, than any imperial church has received in thirty years since the Overlord ousted the nobility. Just as in the Empire, the most popular religion by far is the Church of Pelor . Pelor worship in the Old Rule is of a more ascetic, renunciative stripe than that of it's sister church, however. There are various reasons put forward for this: harsher conditions creating harsher gods, migrant communities tending towards stricter scriptural interpretation, even that it's a possible side effect of the curse. But by far the most compelling explanation frames it as a response to the disease running rampant throughout the kingdom, the fear of infection emphasising the older, purgative aspects aspects of pelorian devotional practice, such as fasting to near starvation and flagellation. But this is not the only outcome of the post-curse tide of sickness. In recent years The Old Rule has begun to attract clerics from surrounding nations, many of whom view it as a kind of mecca - its plagues a perfect opportunity to exercise the pelorian duty to heal, and the simple act of passing through the country's gates, a portal through which one may not return without the King's consent, serving as an embodiment of the religion's precepts relating to self-sacrifice. Population The Old Rule was for for the most part uninhabited when the first settlers arrived and the tiny indigineous population that did exist were quickly subjugated by the King's armies. The next thirty years saw a slow absorption of these primarily tribal peoples into the transplanted feudal system, with those who refused to swear fealty to the King either killed or banished. Small pockets of the the Old Rule's original communities still exist, however, but are largely confined to either the densest forests or the mountainous regions encircling the kingdom. Those tribespeople who chose or were forced to assimilate generally live on the outskirts of what passes for Old Rule society, the men traditionally working as farmhands, or, due to their unique set of skills, particularly their ability to communicate with animals, as horse whisperers or sheepherders. Even within the peasantry, then, there is deep social stratification, with the sheepmen, as they are commonly known, forming a kind of underclass, a group both feared and shunned by the serf communities of which they form a vital part. As has been previously noted, Pantang's curse saw King Cevye's expansionist plans curtailed, the knock on effect being that large sections of the Old Rule remain uninhabited to this day, with the vast majority of the peasantry, their towns and villages, clustered around the forts, citadels and castles of the various house lords. The concentration of people within these relatively tiny areas combined with the effects of the curse and poor hygiene and sanitation probably explains the high incidence of disease across the Old Rule, as well the steady dwindling of the overall population - from roughly 30,000 ten years ago, to less than 10,000 today. Non-human Population While there is very little evidence of humanoids other than humans existing in large numbers anywhere within the Old Rule, the point should be made that the early settlers, who were preoccupied with reconstructing their ruined culture, explored only a fraction of the realm's surface area before the curse put a stop to this impulse indefinitely. As a result, many scholars concede that the question of whether or not non-humans enjoy a substantial presence in any of these unexplored regions is an open one. While Old Rule society, such as it is, is in the main human in composition, other races are not barred from its borders and tiny smatterings of lawful non-human citizenry can be found throughout the kingdom. Of all the non-human races halflings are by far the most common, often attached to a royal house as manservants, jesters or bards. Another race of note are the blue dwarves of House Verinrue. Although recently their status as an actual race has been thrown into doubt by Pelorian scholar Moonie of Moondoor , who argues in her now infamous paper YE MANYE AND TRUE AFFLICTIONf AND BLIGHTf TO BE FOUNDE IN YE OLDE RULE that the dwarfs should be understood not as a distinct people or species, but as humans disfigured by disease. Geography The Old Rule lies to the west of the Empire and is ringed by vast mountain ranges which serve as natural defenses. The only gate to and from the realm can be found outside Castle Verinrue The Kingdom is split into six fiefdoms, each presided over by a different house. House Verinrue rules the lands to the far east of the realm, from King's Cloak Forest through to the lower Mumps , and Lord Verinrue counts among his vassals the people of Veriton, Splitney, Peweny, Croakton and Frugham . House Simbelene governs the north west, House Blackenblack the far west, House Quelfaunch Frugland through to the Aw Knockers at the realm's center, House Brewas the south western border, and the royal house, House Cevye, the lands furthest south. Mountains There are three mountain ranges encircling the Old Rule, with the Cracked Crowns travelling from its easternmost to its southernmost border, the Foolscap Mountains travelling from the east to the north.... NEEDS FLESHING OUT Rivers The River Yonder serves as the Old Rule's main waterway, bisecting the realm east to west. 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